Recently there has been a bunch of ‘perspective’ articles from mountain bikers to roadies, from roadies to mountain bikers and from bike shops to customers. Here’s one from women cyclists.
- Best women's road bikes under £1000
- How to choose the right mountain bike for you
- Top 6 workouts for cyclists
I don’t pretend to represent every female on two wheels, but I ride road bikes, mountain bikes and cyclocross. I commute by bike and I race. I ride with my kids, I pull a bike trailer, I shop for bike kit online and offline. I read the magazines and websites and I skulk on forums. In my meanderings, with a heightened awareness from my life as an academic researcher of culture and language, I regularly reel from the throwaway comments and instinctual reactions which make me feel like a woman on a bike, not just a cyclist.
I’m not having a pop at men, nor doing any blaming on an individual level. I’m pointing out a few of the ways that huge gendered forces like ‘culture’ and ‘discourse’ manifest in the way we can all sometimes talk and think. So this is how to annoy women cyclists:
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1. Give different prize money for men and women
Riding for 24 hours straight is not harder if you have a penis, so prizes should be the same across the gender categories.
2. Say that female riders “put the men to shame”
It sounds supportive but it suggests it’s shameful to be overtaken by a female cyclist. It’s not. The same applies to phrases like being ‘chicked’ — which also means being overtaken or beaten by a woman. It’s not a big deal so get over it.
3. Tell women to “be careful” on a particular section without assessing her ability first
What am I thinking when this happens? “It’s a tricky bit of the trail, I can see that, and I will ride it if I have the skills. There is no need to point out the potential dangers just because I happen to have breasts”.
4. Presume women are mechanically incompetent
5. Talk to women shop customers like the only thing they’re interested in is the colour
6. Report races with the women’s event as a sideshow
7. Promote amateur races with fewer laps or short race lengths for women
8. Presume all our heroes are men
9. Put pink on everything
10. Use sex to market bike stuff
You can read more at BikeRadar.com
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